Tuesday, 19 January 2010

Now you don't hear it!

Finally we have launched the Morpheus Server (and ripper) at the CES show in Las Vegas a little over a week ago... and before then, I couldn't really say too much the product! Now that's all over we can have a closer look at the product and some of the design aspect of the unit.

Oh yeah, the first unit made was in a Bordeaux Red... well I like it and thankfully eveyone else did too! Since the unit is all aluminium we can anodise it in any colour we like, so we made a black one too for old time's sake!

The Morpheus server's design specification was really simple:Simple to use, quiet as hell, small, and green (enviromentally that is).

I have had computers working as servers and NAS drives at home and honestly, never again! The computer was ugly and noisy, and the NAS drive was just plain noisy, especially when you want to listen to your music and relax! So the Morpheus Server needs to first tackle the noise aspect very seriously, infact nearly all the effort was focused on the noise issue!

Now you hear it! has been our slogan for the longest time but not this time for this bad boy! This unit has to be ultra quiet itself and also vibration free so it would not casue noise to its surroundings. So the first thing was to get rid of the need of fans in the unit. All the main components, power supply unit etc. must also be fanless versions so they can operate indefinitely without needing a fan to cool it... sounds simple until you realise that they are like hen's teeth to find! Only the latest generations of components are thinking along that way to save power and be silent!

Vibration elimination was a bit more complicated! We have 2 fast hard disk drives inside which whirls, crackles, clicks and vibrates like hell, so the way they are mounted has to be carefully looked into. Having been into cars and our office situated not far from a Lexus dealer, I have looked into ways cars have used to reduce vibration, centrifugal or torque issues when mounting their engines! After some experimentation, the hard drives inside the Morpheus are now mounted on 8 rubber damper mountings, selected by sampling several shores and numbers used before deciding on the best combination. The drives themselves are coupled in a way that their individual vibrations cancels each other, inspired by silent shafts used in car engines, and the final result was rather spectacular!

Of course all these efforts can easily be lost again if the box is made like a tin can... but not the Morpheus Server! If you look closely you will see the case is made from a seamless aluminium tube and the walls are 6mm thick. Aluminium is a low resonance material and seamless means minimum noise can escape for the box and it won't fall apart in years to come! Aluminium conducts heat very well which helps the cooling of all internal parts and thermal stability is assured. The fully assembled unit weighs a hefty 5kg and all that weight rests on 4 soft, natural rubber feet, making the unit even more silent and vibration free! Infact when Haider first took one home, he wasn't sure if the unit was on or not cos it was so quiet!

Here are a few shots of the unit:

The eagle eye'd reader will observe that there are only 2 buttons on the unit (specially made from cast-acryllic for the Morpheus). One to switch the unit on and off, the other is to eject the disc in an emergency! I say emergency because the CD is automatically ejected once it has been recorded! We couldn't have possible made this unit easier to use... 2 wires to connect, one button to push and then stick a CD into its slot and go make urself a drink! After a few minutes the CD is ejected signifying that the CD has been recorded and stored into the immense 3TB hard disk. You can then access all your music from your Morpheus Music center or any other UPnP streaming devices!

Are we Green? Oh yes! We never over look the enviromental impact of our products and the Morpheus is probably one of the greenest servers around!